Strengthening public health laboratories in the WHO African Region: a critical need for disease control: report of the Regional Director

BACKGROUND1. Laboratories continue to play a critical role in all disease control and prevention programmesby providing timely and accurate information for use in patient management and diseasesurveillance. For purposes of case management and disease control and prevention, laboratories canbe grouped into two broad categories: clinical laboratories and public health laboratories.12. Public health laboratories are responsible for providing timely and reliable results primarily forthe purpose of disease control and prevention. Clinical laboratories, on the other hand, areresponsible for providing accurate diagnosis of ongoing, recent or past infections for appropriate casemanagement. The focus of the clinical laboratory is individual patient care. However, data generatedfrom both types of laboratories are essential for disease surveillance, control and preventionactivities.3. In the African Region, the situation of laboratory services is characterized by inadequatestaffing, equipment and supplies. These are the main obstacles to early detection of epidemics suchas Ebola, Marburg and both multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis.Functioning public health laboratory systems rely on effective disease surveillance and prevention ofmajor emerging, re-emerging and endemic communicable and noncommunicable diseases.2